Background

Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, the son of Mehli and Tehmina Mehta. His father was a violinist and founding conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and also conducted the American Youth Symphony upon moving to Los Angeles, CA. Mehta is an alumnus of St. Mary's School, Mumbai, and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. While in school, Mehta was taught to play the piano by Joseph de Lima, who was his first piano teacher. Mehta initially intended to study medicine, but eventually became a music student in Vienna at the age of 18, under Hans Swarowsky. Also at the same academy along with Mehta were conductor Claudio Abbado and conductor–pianist Daniel Barenboim.

The Carnival of the Animals

The Carnival of the Animals (Le carnaval des animaux) is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The work was written for private performance by an ad hoc ensemble of two pianos and other instruments, and lasts around 25 minutes.

From the beginning, Saint-Saëns regarded the work as a piece of fun. On 9 February 1886 he wrote to his publishers Durand in Paris that he was composing a work for the coming Shrove Tuesday, and confessing that he knew he should be working on his Third Symphony, but that this work was "such fun" ("...mais c'est si amusant!"). He had apparently intended to write the work for his students at the École Niedermeyer, but it was first performed at a private concert given by the cellist Charles Lebouc on Shrove Tuesday, 9 March 1886.

Production

Behind the scenes

Prime-time television would seem to be the natural place for the adult humor of Warner Bros.'s classic cartoons, as was exemplified by the success of The Bugs Bunny Show that aired Tuesday evenings on ABC in the early 1960s. However, in the mid-1960s, the Warner Bros. cartoons had become established as kiddie entertainment. By 1968, executives at CBS were convinced that all animated material, no matter what its original intended audience had been, belonged exclusively on Saturday mornings. However, the popular characters of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies intentionally had enduring adult appeal from the first, and with the success of other prime-time television specials, such as Charlie Brown, in the mid-1970s, network programmers were finally convinced to give the Warner Bros. animated characters another chance in prime time.

The Wild

The wild makes you happyYeh, ya howl like the nightThe sound of the cityLike the flicker of the lightsYou're the wrong kind of personBut the right kind of thingFor this townA song of the outlawYou're a ghost from the pastThey'll always try to catch youBut they'll always finish lastYou're the wrong kind of personBut the right kind of thingRunning in circles againPlaying with fire till the endThe day is getting closerAnd the nights moving inThe land knows your secretsNow the lands' full of sinYou're the only person who can see every foolRunning in circles againPlaying with fire till the endThe wild makes you happyYeh, ya howl like the nightThe sound of the cityLike the flicker of the lightsYou're the wrong kind of personBut the right kind of thingFor this townRunning in circles again